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I really appreciated Paul putting up his sales figures, so I decided I'd do the same.

As of the end of march, PTA has been available for sale for 6 months.

You can see some nifty info based on sales from October 6 to March 31 here (http://dog-eared-designs.com/sales.html).

I don't know how it compares to everyone else's sales data, but it's far, far better than I ever imagined it would be.

Everyone who's bought a copy has my gratitude. That goes doubly so for everyone who's been kind enough to post about their play experiences.

Anyway, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thanks again!

Cool, congrats. I held off on buying a copy and put it on my birthday list instead, so I got that from my wife on Sunday :)

I think PTA has much more potential than this. You should promote it at media universities and tv-series forums. All those people studying screenwriting should love the hell out of it.

So my question becomes: Have you done any actual adversiting, or is it all word of mouth, blogs, forums?

Thanks for sharing.

Matt --

Thanks a ton.  Numbers like this are really helpful to me.  Now I'm reassessing my business model.

Jeeze, that's a lot of sales.  You deserve every one of them!

yrs--
--Ben

QuoteSo my question becomes: Have you done any actual adversiting, or is it all word of mouth, blogs, forums?

Aside from selling it at GenCon, and this forum, I haven't done hardly a damn thing.

I will, though, but first I need to get the pdf done. It's amazing that I ever got the game finished considering what a slacker I am. I can barely get to the post office to mail the things.

Hoy, :)

Cool stuff.

Hey, that little blip in Lisbon, Portugal is us! :) Well, it's Ricardo, he's the one who owns the rules, but it's us! Yeay us! :)

Anyway, again, great game!

Cheers,

J.

Matt, you deserve this and more-your game is pure genius.

I also have a little question... I dont' know if it's my imagination but 'my' spot on the map seems slighlty oblong -no, wait, I'm not crazy- so I was curious wether you shipped a second book to someone living very near to me...
PtA was very well-received by my usual gaming group, but I always search for like-minded players in my zone.

thank you in advance

Quote from: MarcoBrucaleI also have a little question... I dont' know if it's my imagination but 'my' spot on the map seems slighlty oblong -no, wait, I'm not crazy- so I was curious wether you shipped a second book to someone living very near to me...

I had another sale in Bologna a week after you bought your copy. But I also sold a copy to someone in Vicenza, which is not far from Bologna, I believe.

And thanks for the kind words.

Hey Matt,

Very nice. That includes GenCon sales? My Life with Master sold 237 units in the same timespan (163 print and 74 pdf), well within the same ballpark as PTA. If you don't mind, what were your GenCon sales? My Life with Master sold 79 copies at its first GenCon. My suspicion is that you sold fewer copies of PTA at GenCon, but experienced a bigger post-con mail-order upside. True?

Paul

Quote from: Paul CzegeHey Matt,

Very nice. That includes GenCon sales? My Life with Master sold 237 units in the same timespan (163 print and 74 pdf), well within the same ballpark as PTA. If you don't mind, what were your GenCon sales? My Life with Master sold 79 copies at its first GenCon. My suspicion is that you sold fewer copies of PTA at GenCon, but experienced a bigger post-con mail-order upside. True?

Paul

Hey Paul:

That  data is only October-March, just the sales via the website, and the occasional sale in person to people like Josh.

At GenCon I sold 32. Not to short-change my product, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have sold a fraction as many post-show if well-knowns like Ron and Vincent hadn't given it a try and spoken up about their experiences.

And I think that happened because I contributed as a monkey/ninja the year before and became part of the community. Ron says, "hey, that Matt guy helped out last year, and he has a game he's working on. I'll check it out." That, as opposed to "Matt who?"

So you can translate that into a big chunk of advice for would-be publishers.

Great results.  I'll be putting my own numbers up as soon as I get around to updating them for ytd.

How did you get the map...that's really cool.

Quote from: ValamirHow did you get the map...that's really cool.

Thanks! My wife the geographer coerced me into doing it. :)

She has a CD with some teaching tools on it, and one was a blank politcal map. I just added a dot in approximately the right place for every sale. I won't tell you how long it took. Plus I'm not sure how accurately I placed a few of them.

It's really impressive. All around!

Quote from: Matt Wilson

Quote from: ValamirHow did you get the map...that's really cool.

Thanks! My wife the geographer coerced me into doing it. :)

She has a CD with some teaching tools on it, and one was a blank politcal map. I just added a dot in approximately the right place for every sale. I won't tell you how long it took. Plus I'm not sure how accurately I placed a few of them.

Damn.  I was hoping you'd found a site that you could type in postal zips or something...as cool as it is I DON'T think I be dotting them by hand for my sales ;-)

Quote from: ValamirDamn.  I was hoping you'd found a site that you could type in postal zips or something...as cool as it is I DON'T think I be dotting them by hand for my sales ;-)

Yeah, I was hoping this was some sort of program as well. Very cool-looking, and pretty useful info too!

For comparison I just put up the numbers for Uni (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?p=160104#160104)

Matt, I'm intruigued by the purchase from Japan:  Was this made by a Japanese person, or by a random Occidental in Japan?

I'm curious, because of some posts made and conversations had on www.trpg.net . I've got a couple ideas up my sleeve after the Indie RPG Awards are over, and wanted to confirm if it's worth it or not...

Thanks!
-Andy

Andy,

I don't know what you're cooking up, but if you're curious, I've sold four print copies of My Life with Master to Japan. But they were all to the same guy, an Estonian I believe, who takes them back for friends in his home country on his return trips.

Paul

Andy:

I'm pretty sure that sale was to a Westerner who happened to be living in Tokyo. Unless Western names are now the fashion.

Ahhh, ok.  Thanks for the info though!

-Andy